Nisibis I
In so many ways, the Fathers of the Church were the greatest psychologists, long before the foundation of the modern "science" of psychology. The greatness of the Fathers psychology rests upon their holistic approach, which treats of the human person as a whole, not denying any observable aspect of the person, but affirming each of those aspects within its own sphere.
All of this is especially true of our holy father Ephrem the Syrian, who lived his entire life in a very, very troubled and violent period. Throughout his entire life his homeland was a place of war and bloodshed. Twice, his hometown was besieged and twice it had to be completely evacuated, its inhabitants going into exile. After the last evacuation, Ephrem was never to see his home again. He died in a strange land and went to live forever in his true home country, the Kingdom of Heaven. Despite all this, Ephrem didn't collapse into despair and bitterness as a result of PTSD, but became a very subtle understander of the human spirit and the ways of God.
At some point during the second siege of his hometown, Nisibis, Ephrem began to write the Nisibene Hymns, a series of penitential songs to be sung in church by his ascetical community, the b'nai qyama (the Sons of the Covenant), asking God to lift the siege and save the city. Nisibis I begins with the figure of Noah, the only righteous man of his generation, who was tasked by God with saving a remnant from the world, when the entire world needed to be destroyed by the Deluge. Ephrem, appealing to God in prayer, begins to compare the city's position with that of Noah. Ephrem speaks in the name of the city, saying that God allowed Noah to be surrounded only by water, but "I am surrounded by a flood of weapons." It is soon very clear that Ephrem is not only talking about his besieged hometown. He is talking about the universal human condition. Our life in this world is a warfare. We are all besieged by enemy forces that launch attacks against us by means of temptation. Using the situation of the siege as a metaphor, Ephrem begins to lay out an accurate understanding of the science of God's chastening. The fifth stanza of the hymn begins: "The foulness of guilt Thy righteousness has seen, and Thy pure eyes abhor me. Thou hast gathered the waters by the hand of the unclean, that Thou mightest make for me purification of my guilt; not that in them Thou mightest baptize and purify me, but that in them Thou mightest chasten me with fear. For the waves will stir up to prayer, which will wash away my guilt. The sight of them, which is full of repentance, has been to me a baptism. The sea, O Lord, which should have drowned me, in it let Thy mercies drown my guilt."
Returning to the example of Noah and the Deluge, Ephrem describes the way that God fashioned "an earth from wood," so that He could pour the earth into it and then transfer its contents back again. Ephrem implores God to deal in a similar way with the besieged city. He reminds the Lord that three times the land had been emptied of inhabitants as all the people fled into the walled city. Now he asks the Lord to lift the siege and allow the imprisoned people to go forth from the city to resettle the countryside. So it is that in times of trial and temptation, the faithful soul needs to resort to concentration within the spiritual defense of prayer. From within that place of concentration, the soul, like a walled city, prays for the cessation of the hostilities raised against it.
Furthermore, Ephrem observes that even though the waves of weapons break mightily against the city, the walls do not collapse, because they have not been built upon the sand of false doctrines but upon Christ, Who alone has the power to save. Nevertheless, there is still danger, because there is a "fifth column" within the city that is working against the city. Drawing comparison between the city's situation and that of Noah in the ark, Ephrem depicts the holy patriarch standing between two threatening, life-destroying forces: the waves just outside the ark's relatively thin, wood membrane and the mouths of the wild beasts that are housed within the ark itself. Stanza 10 tells us: "Thou didst close the doors to save the righteous one; Thou didst open the floods to destroy the unclean. Noah stood between the terrible waves that were without, and the destroying mouths that were within: the waves tossed him and the mouths dismayed him. Thou madest peace for him with them that were within; Thou broughtest down before him them that were without: Thou didst speedily change his troubles, for light to Thee, O Lord, are hard things." Each of us has within him or her the "fifth column" of the passions, the disordered energies of our souls that are working against us as we seek to deal with the force of temptation that is coming from outside us.
Despite the fact that the situation seems so dire, Ephrem is confident in the help of the Lord. He asks the Lord to realize the victory that Ephrem already very clearly sees in typology. The enemy has directed against us "a threefold wrath," referring to the three sources of temptation: the world, the flesh and the devil. Nevertheless, Ephrem implores God: "May He of the three days show me threefold mercy," referring to the saving Life of God present to us in the three theological virtues, which spring up in us in their fullness from the third day Resurrection of Christ.
Thus, we see that the lessons contained for us in Nisibis I are threefold: 1) We need to realize that punishment does not really belong to this world. Instead, through trouble, trial and temptation, God is chastening us, that is, He is trying to correct us. Our troubles, trials and temptations are benefactions that come from God, so that we grow and become more perfect. Then, 2) in times of temptation, trouble and trial, we need to withdraw within to a stance of concentration in meditation and prayer. This is our defensive posture, behind our fortified walls in which we trust not in ourselves but in God. 3) We should always be vigilant against those forces within us, the passions, that are seeking to aid our Adversary and bring about our destruction. We should always seek to work against them through self-denial and the practice of the opposite virtues.
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